Naughty, disruptive boys

[DuglyFugly]

Is it common to have so many very disruptive, naughty boys who show off about how brilliant / genius / superior they are while being incredibly puerile, disruptive and out of control? I have a ds and a dd. Before anyone accuses me, ds is 11 and has always been a bit quiet as is dd. They both focus and do their best in the classroom but are not the super stars.
in my dd's year 4 class the boys are mean, rude, disruptive, some of them are very academic and others not much. The common theme is that so many are so full of themselves and so very silly. Is this common in classrooms? Is it different at private school? Not that we could afford it but I'm so fed up with these kids disrupting the learning for well behaved kids. I am not talking about SEN, just general lack of respect, being spoilt at home and being very disruptive.

You’re talking about individual teachers and individual pupils again, ancientgran. Think bigger.

It's Nature v Nurture isn't it.

You can argue the toss about the different behaviour of boys & girls. You can even blaim the parents. But when all the arguing is done you will still say Boys will be Boys and girls are all things nice.

Because there is a difference in masculinity to femininity... unfortunately we as a society cater for one more than the other when it comes to education and other formal settings.

But when all the arguing is done you will still say Boys will be Boys and girls are all things nice.

But who does that benefit? Expecting less from boys means they get away with more. Expecting more from girls means they get away from less.

But I don’t think society looks upon girls as “all things nice”. I’ve heard more adults describe girls in general as gossipy, bitchy and manipulative. These are not nice ways to describe children.

I think so many people believe there is a bias towards girls and in compensating for this perceived bias end up favouring boys.

Do you work in your DDs class? Or are you just relying on what she tells you? Have you spoken to the class teacher?
I agree with others, it’s very sexist to label boys as one thing and girls as another. (unless it’s boys all have a penis and girls all have a vagina!)

You miss so much detail when you just look at the bigger picture. Focus is so valuable.

Children, boys and girls, shouldn't be viewed as just another statistics, they are individuals and should be treated as such.

It's like saying 'I don't see people's colour, I just see people' which means that racism and the impacts of racism are entirely missed.

You treat each child as an individual, pootle along and then one day eventually notice that you have no girls in your A-level maths class.

Fortunately someone else has previously noticed that there's a problem with girls' take-up of maths A-level, done research into the myriad reasons for this and written strategies that help tackle this, but they need to be implemented years in advance.

Going 'gosh, we have a lot of men compared to women in prison' because at that point it's staring you in the face is a bit late.

Do you really not view your students as individuals? You think it is fine to jump to conclusions like a child is poor so will achieve less than a child from a middle class home? You don't look at that child and judge what they can do?

So they are all just a cog in the wheel. I suddenly see why people are opting for private schools. Never realised before but perhaps smaller classes mean you really can see the individual.

I had this from a teacher at an outstanding primary school my son ‘was a typical naughty boy and boys will be boys’ -they get stereotyped so young. Girls have to be quiet - have long hair etc

parents and society are at all.

I challenged this teacher and told her that her language was sexist and accepting of poor behaviour etc

but it is so ingrained. Womens work etc

I know many men who have highly successful
wives - when out of ear shot they refer as their wife as nagging or point out to their son - mummy is getting her hair done or nails done etc

you’d be surprised how fathers talk to their boys and girls when I’m mummy isn’t around - it’s not good.

one friend told his son that women aren’t good at driving and you can never win an argument with a woman as they ‘get too
emotional and turn on the water works’
he’s a doctor as his wife is a judge!

And people say gender stereotyping isn’t harmful ..🙄

Of course I see my students as individuals , however it is also important to look at them as groups. How are different classes doing? How are PP and FSM pupils doing? How are boys doing compared to girls? (look at English GCSE results and tell me that isn't an important conversation) Are we disproportionately excluding children with SEN or from ethnic minorities? Are we disproportionately rewarding girls?

A lot of data analysis is done to identify and tackle inequality.

I had this from a teacher at an outstanding primary school my son ‘was a typical naughty boy and boys will be boys’ -they get stereotyped so young. Girls have to be quiet - have long hair etc

This is so harmful and lazy from the teacher. First of all, it is unfair to the girls, who have a higher standard of behaviour imposed upon them. But it also excuses the school from any blame for not meeting the needs of many of its male pupils - if children who are struggling with behavioural expectations can just be dismissed as 'naughty boys', schools are let off the hook in terms of actually finding ways to keep them engaged in their learning and encouraging them to have higher expectations of themselves.

To the OP, speak to your child’s school. I’m sure they will be able to discuss your concerns.

A couple of the comments from fellow education staff are quite surprising. Read the work of Gary Wilson. He’s been around for a few years but his work on teaching boys is insightful and research led.

YANBU I noticed some shockingly rude and disruptive behaviour on Zoom when we were doing remote learning. (DS was in a class of all boys at the time, a very international private primary school)

My theory is/was that it is due to the differences between the way families treat boys and girls. In many cultures men and boys are traditionally treated like emperors - never have to lift a finger, everyone stops and listens to what they have to say, they generally get what they want. Girls’needs on the other hand are deprioritised - they get whatever airtime and resources are left and are generally expected to do more around the house and fit in with other people’s needs.

What I saw on Zoom were a bunch of boys who a) just could not understand that the world did not revolve around them, and b) did not entirely believe that their female teacher was worthy of respect.

I am not saying that girls can’t be disruptive, but they are more likely to try to please and when they are disruptive, it manifests in a very different way.

I used to work in schools - both in TA and teacher roles - and I hate the 'boys are more prone to disruption' idea. A previous poster was right, it is a lazy stereotype. Both boys and girls can be disruptive.

I attended an all girls school when I was a child and there was a lot of very poor behaviour I can assure you!

Girls massively outperform boys at GCSE, particularly in English. Is that a lazy stereotype or something worth looking into?

@noblegiraffe

this is true. Girls really aren’t at a disadvantage in the education system.

The disadvantage just kicks in once they leave the education system. 😉

We only know these things by looking at the data for groups.

If you only ever consider individuals as individuals, you miss an awful lot.

So why do boys as a group massively underachieve at GCSE (it seems this way round rather than girls overachieve). What do girls tend to do that they don't?

this is true. Girls really aren’t at a disadvantage in the education system

they are in that they are socialised away from maths and stem and toward creative “girl” subjects. The education tsar or whoever in the news actually saying girls don’t take physics because they “don’t like the hard maths”. It starts in primary schools with teachers expecting boys to be better at maths and girls at english.

the stereotyping and expectations start very early. Even in a huge comprehensive school my dd was the only girl in her sports science class- dominated by boys and their football.

i’d go so far as to saying I underachieved at school because I chose stem subjects, woodwork instead of cookery etc. loved the subjects, but was very intimidated being in a class of all boys with male teachers- some of whom made it clear that girls in their class were a waste of time.

I always wonder on posts like this, how the parent has such a detailed knowledge of what goes on in their child's classroom. Are you just going on what your child tells you?

That's an interesting question with a myriad of possible answers @noblegiraffe . One theory is that girls do better with continual assessment while boys do better at one-off exams – I believe boys used to outperform girls back in the day when grades depended almost wholly upon final exams.

I'm not sure anyone has come up with a definitive answer as to why girls don't (generally) take STEM subjects as much as boys – and conversely why more girls take STEM subjects if they are in single-gender schools – other than to point to societal norms and pressures.

Gove binned continual assessment, got rid of modules and a lot of coursework. It's mostly final exams now, and girls still do better than boys.

Did boys do better in the past, or was it just measured looking at STEM subjects? Also there were many children who left school with no qualifications, including many boys, were these children ignored when looking at who did better in exams?

I dropped out of physics (my favourite subject) because it was awkward and unpleasant being in a majority male class. I don't regret at all. Physics is boys all the way up.

@Doona

i think it depends where you are. At my school quite a few girls did physics. Certainly chemistry and maths was a fairly even divide. That was a mixed comp. The attitude of boys subjects definitely exists though. My DCs reception teacher said something like ‘the girls can find maths hard’. Wtf?!

I would say that boys are also steered away from ‘girly’ subject such as English so it works both ways unfortunately. Hardly any boys did art or music/ drama etc.